Integrity...

Integrity is not naiveté. What is naive is to suppose that we are not accountable to God.

-D. Todd Christofferson

A Consecrated Life...

A consecrated life is filled with work, sometimes repetitive, sometimes menial, sometimes unappreciated but always work that improves, orders, sustains, lifts, ministers, aspires. Having spoken in praise of labor, I must also add a kind word for leisure. Just as honest toil gives rest its sweetness, wholesome recreation is the friend and steadying companion of work. Music, literature, art, dance, drama, athletics—all can provide entertainment to enrich one’s life and further consecrate it. At the same time, it hardly needs to be said that much of what passes for entertainment today is coarse, degrading, violent, mind-numbing, and time wasting. Ironically, it sometimes takes hard work to find wholesome leisure. When entertainment turns from virtue to vice, it becomes a destroyer of the consecrated life. “Wherefore, take heed … that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God” (Moroni 7:14).

-D. Todd Christofferson

Precious Children

"It is our solemn duty, our precious privilege—even our sacred opportunity—to welcome to our homes and to our hearts the children who grace our lives."

Thomas S. Monson

The best thing is to learn...

“The best thing for disturbances of the spirit,” replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love and lose your moneys to a monster, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then – to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the poor mind can never distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you.”

-T.H. White, "Sword in the Stone"

Autumn...

The Summer was over at last, and nobody could deny that Autumn was definitely there. It was that rather sad time of year when for the first time for many months the fine old sun still blazes away in a cloudless sky, but does not warm you, and the hoar-frosts and the mists and winds begin to stir their faint limbs at morning and evening, with the gossamer, as the sap of winter vigor remembers itself in the cold corpses which brave summer slew. The leaves were still in the trees, and still green, but it was the leaden green of old leaves which have seen much since the gay colors and happiness of spring – that seems so lately and, like all happy things, so quickly to have passed.

T.H. White, "Sword and the Stone"

The Seeds of Destiny

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

"...But Farmer Hoggett knew that little ideas that tickled and nagged and refused to go away... should never be ignored... for in them lie the seeds of destiny."

Babe, the movie

Don't Procrastinate

Where's the good in putting things off? Strike while the iron is hot.
-Charles Dickens

The Country...

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

If you think the country is quiet, you've never lived in it. Tree frogs alone make you wish for earplugs.

-Sue Monk Kidd, from "The Secret Life of Bees"

Death

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

People who think dying is the worst thing don't know a thing about life.

-Sue Monk Kidd, from "The Secret Life of Bees"

Qualifying for the Lord's Spirit...

"Qualifying for the Lord's Spirit begins with a desire for that Spirit and implies a certain degree of worthiness. Keeping the commandments, repenting, and renewing covenants made at baptism lead to the blessing of always having the Lord's Spirit with us."

Julie B. Beck, "And upon the Handmaids in Those Days Will I Pour Out My Spirit," Ensign, May 2010, 11

Dost thou love life?

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
-Ben Franklin

Slow Down, Ponder, and Pray...

Planning Ahead...

He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life… But where no plan is laid… chaos will soon reign.
-Victor Hugo

Your Gloom is Gone...

“When you find yourselves a little gloomy, look around you and find somebody that is in a worse plight than yourself; go to him and find out what the trouble is, then try to remove it with the wisdom which the Lord bestows upon you; and the first thing you know, your gloom is gone, you feel light, the Spirit of the Lord is upon you, and everything seems illuminated.”

-President Lorenzo Snow

Tomorrow is a new day...

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you will begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Nature to Nurture...

"Satan is always attempting to undermine the most precious element of a woman's divine nature—the nature to nurture."A mother-daughter relationship is where a daughter learns how to nurture by being nurtured. She is loved. She is taught and experiences firsthand what it feels like to have someone care about her enough to correct her while continuing to encourage and believe in her at the same time."

M. Russell Ballard

Fatherhood

"Most men worry about succeeding in their life's work and spend much time and effort at their profession. But I've learned that the way to put one's professional life in order is to put one's personal life in order. How can we be adequate at anything professionally without being adequate as men, husbands, and fathers first?"

James E. Faust, "Brethren, Love Your Wives," Ensign, July 1981, 3

Home is our Family...

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

Our home is our family, not our possessions.

-Christina Gregory, Dear America Series: Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie

Nature

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

"To walk in nature is always good medicine."

-Jean Craighead George, "On the Far Side of the Mountain

Truth

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

Why do grown ups think it is easier to hear secrets then the truth? Don't they know about the horror stories we imagine to explain the secrets?

-Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

Beauty and Fear

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

Beauty and fear make uneasy companions.

-Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

Fear

Photo: Ben Romney, Europe

Nothing is more frightening then a fear you cannot name.

-Cornelia Funke, Inkheart

Our Treasures

Photo: Lydia Stewart

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
-Thorton Wilder

Faith

Photo: Lydia Stewart

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.
-Blaise Pascal

A Good Marriage

There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.
-Martin Luther